Kiva is an organization that empowers individuals to make charitable, microfinance loans. Anyone can look at the profiles of businesses (all rural entrepreneurs, currently all in Uganda), make a loan of as little as $25 through PayPal, and stay in contact with their sponsored business for the 6-12 months (average time) it takes to have the loan repaid.

This is a truly innovative platform for BOP microfinance, and although currently subsisting on seed money from its partner (Village Enterprise Fund) Kiva intends to be eventually financially sustainable.

(Editor's note: this post was picked up by WorldChanging; a nice discussion is ongoing)